Omicron cancels New Year's Eve celebrations in Rio

The mayor of Rio de Janeiro has cancelled New Year's Eve celebrations after Brazil confirmed the first known cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant in Latin America's biggest country.

The cancellation of the party, which attracts millions of residents and tourists to the world-famous Copacabana beach to watch the fireworks, does not come as a surprise. The cancellation was supported by health experts, through a tweet by Rio de Janeiro Governor Claudio Castro after Mr Paes' announcement left room for a potential reversal.Dutch former queen Beatrix, 83, has tested positive for Covid-19, the royal information service RVD said in a statement today.

Australia reported its first community transmission of Omicron yesterday at a school in Sydney. Authorities are investigating the source and said more cases were expected. Several thousand people protested vaccination mandates in Melbourne, with the demonstrations now a weekly event that has been attracting groups of regular citizens, as well as far-right and conspiracy theory supporters.

Despite battling many outbreaks this year, leading to months of lockdown in Sydney and Melbourne - Australia's largest cities - the country has had only about 834 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the World Health Organisation, a fraction of many other developed nations.Dutch authorities say 18 passengers from South Africa had Omicron

More than 600 passengers travelling on the flights were kept isolated and tested for Covid-19, with 61 testing positive, including the 18 who were found to have the Omicron variant. It is also reducing the limit on private gatherings to six people in the greater Seoul area, from 10 currently, and to eight from 12 for those residing outside of the capital, starting next Monday.

South Korea has been battling the worst wave of infections since July, when the daily cases stood below 2,000 until the government switched to "living with Covid-19 ".The country, which has fully inoculated 91.7% of its adult population, has so far reported a total of 467,907 Covid-19 infections, with 3,809 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Source: Financial Digest (financialdigest.net)

No doubt this is more fake news I’ve friends there they said nope! Spent the past 6 months there and was supposed to be lockdown it’s not! Thank god people he bigger things to worry about over there like eating to survive

The world has well and truly gone mad, the comic con variant aka a sniffle and a headache, and the world has lost its marbles

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